Turo Cafe and Grill

 If You Know, You Know 

I’m watching Chamaca run around her room with a black wire wastebasket over her head, bouncing off the walls and furniture with no obvious impairment to her stride. She looks like the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I want to hear her say, “Tis but a scratch.”  But instead she is repeatedly saying, “A cracker! A cracker! A cracker!”  This is her indication that she is hungry, and in a few minutes, she will be hangry. It’s 8am on a Saturday in early November in San Francisco. There was light rain overnight, the ground is wet but the sky is clear and it’s 54 degrees, sun rays creeping over the rooftops. This is my favorite time to be outside, the cold air feels oxygen dense and jump starts my brain. Still in her pajamas, I wrap Chamaca in a sweater and we leave the comfort of our warm apartment behind. We are headed to a small enclave south of Balboa Park called Cayuga Terrace. Surrounded by Muni rail yards, situated on a busy corner sits Turo Cafe and Grill. I want a complete Filipino breakfast today, and I am willing to wrestle a 19 month old toddler into a car seat to get it. 

Filipino breakfast has everything I love on one plate. There is a balance of savory, sweet, and sour that makes my mouth water as I type this. It’s dangerous, dangerous because I could eat it every day.

Filipino breakfast is called Silog in their native language of Tagalog. 

Typical breakfast includes the following:

• garlic fried rice (sinangag)

• a fried egg (itlog)

• A side of Datu Puti Vinegar 

• Sliced tomato (sometimes pineapple too)

The accompanying protein served determines the full breakfast name. 

• tapa (cured beef)

• longganisa (Filipino sausage)

• tocino (sweet cured pork)

• bangus (milkfish)

So, if I wanted Longganisa with my breakfast, it would be called Longsilog. Tapa with my breakfast is Tapsilog, etc.

Standing in front of the hot line at Turo Cafe and Grill, both our stomachs grumbling, and mouth salivating at the sight of freshly cooked longganisa. I had no choice but to go with the Longsilog. The staff here is very friendly, even going so far as offering to put YouTube baby shows on the TV for Chamaca. Once we sat down I gave her a bite of garlic rice and she motioned for more. I added some vinegar to the rice, which is the way I was taught to eat it, and suddenly this baby ate a full scoop of rice on her own. A note worth mentioning about garlic fried rice. This is not as easy as it sounds, because it takes talent to balance flavors here. There are a lot of different ingredients going on in this breakfast plate, and if the garlic flavor is too forward it’ll throw off the whole thing. I almost wanted to say that the rice was a bit under seasoned on its own, but combined with the vinegar, a piece of longganisa, and a small bit of pineapple I cried out loud, “Son of a bitch, it’s the perfect bite.”  I’ll probably get yelled at for the following statement, but if you reach deep down far enough in your mind you’ll understand that longganisa + pineapple almost taste like al pastor tacos. I wish this place served beer or I would have got a San Miguel Pilsen to go with this breakfast. 

Filipinos and Latinos have a lot more in common than one would think, and I would not chalk that up to Spanish colonization. I am walking a fine cultural line here, but in all due respect to both cultures, I spent a lot of time drinking San Miguels and passing around the Johnny Walker Black Label bottle with the Filipino homies, Lolo’s (grandfathers) and Tito’s (uncles) while playing Pusoy Dos. Filipinos are a culture of family, feast, good times and great conversations. In Los Angeles, the highest compliment you can pay someone in Latino Culture is to invite them to the Carne Asada, and I can tell you, Filipino homies always come to the Carne Asada. It’s a secret club that only certain people get invited to, a culture of exchanging head nods and the phrase, “If you know, you know.”

And if you really do know about knowing, then you’ll know that something so culturally significant as breakfast can make or break your day. So put the box of cereal back in the cabinet, because you deserve more. Filipino breakfast puts me in a calm and connected state of mind. I feel like I can handle anything that gets thrown at me with a smile and good humor. As we leave Turo Cafe and Grill and I load Chamaca back into the truck, I shut the door and wonder what to do next. To be honest, I’m at a loss, because what I really want to do is call up some Filipino homies and see what time they are playing basketball, maybe roll by the park with Chamaca and let her watch the game from the comfort of her stroller as she kicks her feet up onto the snack tray. Alas, we haven’t been in San Francisco long enough to make those connections here, I have no Filipino homies to call up. But I find comfort in knowing that I can always come to Turo Cafe and Grill to taste a piece of home, a head nod, and knowing that I know. 

Turo Cafe and Grill

2275 San Jose Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112